ttle late,
and asked me if I would assist him, I would have jumped over his head to
oblige him, though he was three inches taller than I was. I am willing
to go a step farther. If this had been the first, or even the twentieth,
time that Ham had treated me in this shabby manner, I would have
submitted. For three years he had been going on from bad to worse, till
he seemed to regard me not only as a dog, but as the meanest sort of a
dog, whom he could kick and cuff at pleasure.

I had stood this sort of thing till I could not stand it any longer. I
had lain awake nights thinking of the treatment bestowed upon me by
Captain Fishley and his wife, and especially by their son Ham; and I had
come deliberately to the conclusion that something must be done. I was
not a hired servant, in the ordinary sense of the term; but, whether I
was or was not a servant, I was entitled to some consideration.

"What's that you say?" demanded Ham, leaping over the counter of the
store.

I walked leisurely out of the shop, and directed my steps towards the
barn; but I had not accomplished half the distance before my tyrant
overtook me. Not being willing to take the fire in the rear, I halted,
wheeled about, and drew up in order of battle. I had made up my mind to
keep perfectly cool, whatever came; and when one makes up his mind to be
cool, it is not half so hard to succeed as some people seem to think.

"I told you to black my boots," said Ham, angrily.

"I know you did."

"Well, Buck Bradford, you'll do it!"

"Well, Ham Fishley, I won't do it!"

"Won't you?"

"No!"

"Then I'll make you."

"Go on."

He stepped up to me; but I didn't budge an inch. I braced up every fibre
of my frame in readiness for the shock of battle; but there was no shock
of battle about it.

"I guess I'll let the old man settle this," said Ham, after a glance at
me, which seemed very unsatisfactory.

"All right," I replied.

My tyrant turned on his heel, and hastened back to the store. Ham
Fishley's father was "the old man," and I knew that it would not be for
the want of any good will on his part, if the case was not settled by
him. I had rebelled, and I must take my chances. I went to the barn,
harnessed the black horse to the wagon, and hitched him at a post in the
yard, in readiness to go down to Riverport for the mail, which I used to
do every evening after supper.

Of course my thoughts were mainly fixed upon the settlement with the old
man;